Arbitrarily oriented microcracks near the tip of an interface macrocrack in bonded dissimilar anisotropic materials

It is well known that microcracking in brittle materials results in a reduction of the stress intensity factor (SIF) and energy release rate (ERR). The reduced SIF or ERR represents crack tip shielding which is of significant interest to micromechanics and material science researchers. However, the effect of microcracking on the SIF and ERR is a complicated subject even for isotropic homogeneous materials, and becomes much more formidable in case of interface cracks in bonded dissimilar solids. To unravel the micromechanics of interface crack tip shielding in bonded dissimilar anisotropic solids, an interface crack interacting with arbitrarily oriented subinterface microcracks in bonded dissimilar anisotropic materials is studied. After deducing the fundamental solutions for a subinterface crack under concentrated normal and tangential tractions, the present interaction problem is reduced to a system of integral equations which is then solved numerically. A J ‐integral analysis is then performed with special attention focused on the J 2 ‐integral in a local coordinate system attached to the microcracks. Theoretical and numerical results reassert the conservation law of the J ‐integral derived for isotropic materials 1,2 also to be valid for bonded dissimilar anisotropic materials. It is further concluded that there is a wastage when the remote J ‐integral transmits across the microcracking zone from infinity to the interface macrocrack tip. In order to highlight the influence of microstructure on the interfacial crack tip stress field, the crack tip SIF and ERR in several typical cases are presented. It is interesting to note that the Mode I SIF at the interface crack tip is quite different from the ERR in bonded dissimilar anisotropic materials.